The Hard Times...

"...and I'm sorry you had to feel hurt, too," she said to me with sweet caring, during a discussion about the season of  heartaches in which she finds herself.

And I pondered it...in the days since that kind and caring statement was presented to me.

Those hurtful things I've walked through in the past 40 years. No...I would certainly not want to walk through them all over again. And some of them happened because of my own sinfulness while others happened because I live in a broken world where other people's messiness touches my life, leaving me betrayed, neglected or rejected where someone should have been standing faithfully at their God-given post but wasn't.

And I conclude...(as the sun sets on the third decade of my life) that I have learned alot through hurtful things. I have learned to let God be my everything and I have learned that expectations ruin relationships...to just accept people where they are while showing them love and hope. I have learned so very much and I treasure the deep fellowship I have found with Jesus as I traveled over many miles of wilderness.

He is a faithful Guide. I have never been in want. I have only needed to reach out and receive what He was offering in abundance: grace, mercy, forgiveness, new LIFE!

And life Joseph, I honestly say from the bottom of my heart: "Satan meant (it) for evil, but the Lord meant it for good."

I am content. I am at rest. My heart is perpetually peaceful tho stormy winds might blow around me at times. And I am well cared for by the One who knows each end from its beginning.